Solar power sail mission of OKEANOS
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https://doi.org/10.1007/s42064-019-0067-8
Solar power sail mission of OKEANOS Osamu Mori1 (), Jun Matsumoto1 , Toshihiro Chujo2 , Masanori Matsushita1 , Hideki Kato1 , Takanao Saiki1 , Yuichi Tsuda1 , Jun’ichiro Kawaguchi1,4 , Fuyuto Terui1 , Yuya Mimasu1 , Go Ono1 , Naoko Ogawa1, Yuki Takao3, Yuki Kubo3, Kaoru Ohashi4, Ahmed Kiyoshi Sugihara1, Tatsuaki Okada1, Takahiro Iwata1 , and Hajime Yano1 1. 2. 3. 4.
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Sagamihara 252-5210, Japan Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo 152-8550, Japan The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-8654, Japan Patchedconics, LLC, Sagamihara 252-5210, Japan
ABSTRACT
KEYWORDS
The solar power sail is an original Japanese concept in which electric power is generated
solar power sail
by thin-film solar cells attached on the solar sail membrane. Japan Aerospace Exploration
Trojan asteroid
Agency (JAXA) successfully demonstrated the world’s first solar power sail technology
landing
through IKAROS (Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun) mission
in-situ analysis
in 2010. IKAROS demonstrated photon propulsion and power generation using thin-film
outer solar system
solar cells during its interplanetary cruise. Scaled up, solar power sails can generate enough
OKEANOS
power to drive high specific impulse ion thrusters in the outer planetary region. With this concept, we propose a landing or sample return mission to directly explore a Jupiter Trojan asteroid using solar power sail-craft OKEANOS (Oversize Kite-craft for Exploration and
Research Article
AstroNautics in the Outer Solar System). After rendezvousing with a Trojan asteroid, a
Received: 17 March 2019
lander separates from OKEANOS to collect samples, and perform in-situ analyses in three
Accepted: 13 September 2019
proposed mission sequences, including sending samples back to Earth. This paper proposes
© Tsinghua University Press
a system design for OKEANOS and includes analyses of the latest mission.
1
Introduction
For early missions with large solar distances, Galileo, Cassini, and New Horizons relied on radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTG) to generate the required electric power, while chemical propulsion was used to generate the required delta-velocity (ΔV ). As the performance of solar cells improved, Rosetta and Juno were able to instead rely on solar power even at these distances. Furthermore, Hayabusa and Hayabusa2 were able to generate enough power to operate their ion thrusters, generating enough ΔV for a return trip to small asteroids. It is key to note, however, that the power obtainable through solar panels reduces drastically beyond the asteroid belt, making the operation of ion thrusters challenging, while yet larger ΔV is required to reach these distances. These two factors make landing
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2019
missions beyond the asteroid belt difficult with today’s state of the art. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is currently considering exploring Jupiter Trojan asteroids through the Lucy mission, however, this
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